This was basically 2015 Julio Teheran versus 2014 Julio Teheran. Johnny Cueto couldn’t get his pitches down and gave up too many gopherballs, and Teheran pounded the bottom of the zone with 93- and 94-mile an hour fastballs, yielding nothing but three singles and two walks in six innings.

It was a balanced attack: all of the regulars but Nick Markakis and Teheran got at least one hit, five different batters got an extra-base hit, and Christian Bethancourt had his first multihit game of the year. Jonny Gomes hit a laserbeam to left and Kelly Johnson crushed another one, his third bomb in his last seven games.

It’s honestly hard to find something to complain about. Julio wasn’t quite perfect — he needed 102 pitches to get through six innings, so Fredi had to go to the bullpen at the top of the 7th, as per usual. For some reason, Cody Martin pitched two innings, but he was his usual brilliant self, striking out three and needing just 23 pitches to get six outs.

Michael Kohn got the first two outs in the ninth, and then somehow walked Brandon Phillips — it was only the fourth walk of the year for Phillips, whose career walk rate is lower than that of Andrelton Simmons. I guess Fredi doesn’t have a lot of confidence in Kohn, because he yanked him with two outs in the 9th, a man on first, and a 5-run lead, and brought in Luis Avilan to face the lefthanded Brennan Boesch. Boesch has a career OPS+ of 94 and spent most of 2014 in the minor leagues; he has a grand total of 151 plate appearances since the beginning of 2013. Avilan overmatched him, striking him out in just three pitches. And that was that.

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72 comments on “Braves 5, Reds 0”

Career Minor League numbers are misleading on Jace. Admittedly, he was fairly punchless when he first arrived in the Minors but ’13-’14 showed a completely different ballplayer: 41 doubles 19 triples and 10 HR in roughly 1.5 Minor League seasons. If some of those doubles dissipate into singles and some triples turn into doubles, sure it skews his numbers

And the scouts say there’s gap power present (My favorite, John Sickels, amongst them). In the early stages of the season and ST, we were seeing it, but it wasn’t falling for Jace.

Only time will tell, but I’m on the record saying I think it’s there, and hopefully it’ll start showing up.

I like Jace. I think he will develop a little more punch, but he’ll never be a 15-20 HR guy. If he can work some counts, get on base and play great D, he will be a nice role player. Maybe even Playoffs Lemmer good.

Between Kelly Johnson, Jonny Gomes, and A.J. Pierzynski, our bench has been light years ahead of where it was last year. If yesterday was the real Julio, and if Alex Wood can rediscover his fastball command, I’ll feel a whole lot better about the team.

Yeah, Gattis is really cranking the ball of late, five homers in his last six games. I’m really happy for the guy — I would have hated for there to be a narrative that it was a mistake for them to get him. He’s such a great guy to root for.

Catcher’s ERA in the best of circumstances is a questionable stat, and over a small sample size it’s pretty dreadful, but it’s very clear that Pierzynski is sloppy behind the plate — not only can he not throw anybody out, he allows more than his share of wild pitches and passed balls. Moreover, he and Bethancourt are both pretty new to the team, and they’re still getting to know both their pitchers and their NL opponents. Other than 30 games in St. Louis last year, Pierzynski’s been a full-time American Leaguer since 2005. It stands to reason that they’ll both improve with time as they get to know their pitchers and their opponents better. And hopefully as the weather warms up, our pitchers’ fastballs will improve, too.

@20, kind of. This is not the same, but I broke my ribs a few months ago while skiing, and I figured it was just a bad bruise for like a week before I finally went in and got X-rays. If I went skiing all the time, it’s very possible that I simply wouldn’t have known when I got the lingering chest pain.

What I mean to say is, a significant part of the job for these guys is learning to live with pain, and there isn’t always a bright line between a bruise and a break. In my book it’s still inexcusable for him not to have told the team that he was hurting, but I think it’s plausible that he may not have known how bad it was.

@53, Contrary to what many dedicated fans who daily read Bowman’s blog may sometimes think, it is not incorrect for an observant person to comment that his blogs are not well written and often poorly structured prose

If you let Teheran eat innings the first few months and stick with the plan to provide an extra day of rest whenever possible, you're less likely to end up in a position where you may need to limit the younger arms down the stretch